A Very Different Christmas Card

I remember as 2013 began, I was running early one morning, and I saw one of those church signs, and it said, “Does it get any better than this?” I thought to myself, how could it? We had just celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary in December, our four children were doing great, I loved my job at WIKA , I was enjoying teaching so much at Georgia Gwinnett College, we loved our church, how could life get much better than this? That run seems so long ago, so distant in my memory. While life couldn’t get much better, it could get a whole lot worse.

It all started in the January/February timeframe, we found out that one of our dogs, Minnie, had cancer after pouring lots and lots of money into diagnoses. She had very little time to live, and we finally had to humanely put her down in early March. While Minnie was “just a dog”, she was a part of our family, and it was difficult to see her short and happy life end too soon.

In April, Laurel’s Mom finally succumbed after many years of battling various ailments. Laurel had tried to

make a last visit to say goodbye to her Mom late in 2012, but Hurricane Sandy prevented that trip. We had been trying to plan a trip for her to get up for a visit early in 2013, but life didn’t cooperate.

In June, my Dad ended his long battle with cancer. I’ve watched others battle cancer, Laurel lost both of her sisters several years ago to cancer, and if you haven’t seen it up close and personal, it is a bitter and ugly battle to watch. Cancer can be devastating, and just sucks the life out of the best people.

While these losses were very devastating, they pale in comparison to the “rest of the story” as Paul Harvey would say. In the midst of all of this, we faced some of the greatest nightmares any parent can ever encounter.

In January, we started getting some distressing calls from Patrick from Grove City College. Just a few weeks earlier, he had seemed very happy, but that had changed dramatically. As the weeks went by, he was plummeting. Each conversation was getting deeper and deeper into depression. I finally told him, if he wanted to come home, just come home. He then said the words that no parent ever wants to hear. He said, “you won’t be disappointed in me?” If there’s one thing in life I’ve learned as a parent, don’t ever tell your children or lead them to believe you are ever disappointed in them. I told him no, I could never be disappointed in him.

Unfortunately, he didn’t come home soon enough, and we got a call from the counselor on campus that Patrick was planning to commit suicide, and he wanted to admit him to a local psychiatric hospital. This was our first experience with a psychiatric hospital, and we learned a lot, particularly patience. Imagine yourself as a parent, and your child is five or six states away, and he/she is in a psychiatric hospital that you’ve never seen, and you can only talk to him or her once a day? It brings to mind the line from Gordon Lightfoot’s haunting song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” that goes, “where does the love of God go when the waves turn the minutes to hours?” We patiently would wait for that time each evening, when we would get 10-15 minutes on the phone with Patrick, and try to decipher what the hell was going on. As soon as we were able, Laurel and Kelly got a flight up to Pennsylvania to see Patrick in the hospital, which gave us a whole lot of comfort. We were eventually able to secure Patrick’s release from the psychiatric hospital, and we were able to bring him home.

One of the most painful parts of all of this was withdrawing Patrick from Grove City. When we got Patrick released from the psychiatric hospital, we also packed all of his stuff up from his dorm. For the first two years, Patrick loved Grove City. Then as he descended deeper and deeper, many of the people at Grove City rejected him. While we thought Grove City was a loving, Christian community, we found out that the Christian love only flowed to those who walked like them, talked like them and looked like them. I will say that packing up his dorm room was one of the most painful separations I’ve witnessed in my life.

When we brought Patrick home, we had some significant adjustments to make. We hid all of the knives in the house, or anything else that we believed he could hurt himself with. Laurel spent many nights sleeping in the spare bed in Patrick’s room to make sure that he didn’t hurt himself. But the pain for all of us was just beginning. Shortly after Patrick came home, Patrick revealed the one night at dinner what had led him to want to commit suicide. While it is only fair to Patrick to leave this piece of the story to him to reveal someday, it is safe to say that it is one of a parent’s deepest fears and nightmares. The fact that it also impacted Sean made the impact that much deeper.

I have to admit that when I heard what had happened, I had no reaction. No anger, no tears, no nothing. I was stone cold in my emotions, I was completely numb. It wasn’t for about another week or so, as I was driving down the road, and all of a sudden, the damn burst. The tears, the anger, the hate burst forward, I flooded with emotions, and couldn’t control them. I hated myself, I felt like a miserable failure as a father, God had given me children to love and protect, and I had failed Him miserably. I desperately wanted to hurt or kill the person who had brought this devastation down on my sons, but I knew that wasn’t the solution.

My morning runs progressed through my emotions, as I worked through the pain and the anger. Initially, my prayers would be “please get the devil off my back, dear God, don’t let me do anything stupid.” I’d work my way to “please heal Patrick dear Lord, please heal him.” I’d eventually work up to “please heal Patrick dear Lord on your time, please heal him on your time.” I never worked up to the ultimate prayer, “Thy will be done, Lord, thy will be done.” That is always the most difficult prayer, and I just couldn’t bring myself to that prayer.

While I wish I could say that when Patrick came home, everything worked out happily ever after, and we all went back to normal, it wasn’t that simple. Patrick eventually went back into a local psychiatric hospital. It was a disaster, the hospital was awful, and to a certain extent, that may have been a turning point for all of us. Eventually, Patrick progressed, he climbed out of the depths, through various counselors and medication, he emerged from the depths of Hell. He was able to go back to school this fall, to Oglethorpe University. While Patrick’s healing isn’t complete, he has progressed far beyond our hopes and expectations. He is in love, but unfortunately the young lady just went back home to Spain, so he is heartbroken.  That is the type of crisis we can more readily deal with.

Through all of this, we’ve also had to deal with similar, but different, issues with Sean. While I would never demean what Sean has been through, it has not been quite as dramatic as Patrick’s journey. Still, it’s been difficult. I remember one point, just a few months ago, when Sean sent me a long and torrid e-mail that said at one point, “I don’t think you know what the Hell you’re doing as a father, you aren’t handling this situation very well.” And you know, he was right, and I told him he was right, I had no idea what the Hell I was doing. I never imagined facing this type of challenge, and in so many ways, I was failing miserably.  Sean and I had some rough patches, I was overwhelmed with all that was going on, and sometimes, I just couldn't give Sean what he needed.  Thankfully, he has been able to forgive me for my shortcomings.

As difficult and as bad as this year was, the amazing thing is that it’s brought me even closer to God. My morning runs gave me time to pray, to reflect, to cry, to beg God for answers to why this has happened to us. I still don’t know why, but I do believe God has a greater purpose for all of us. This all happened for a reason, and someday, we’ll understand why.

We also benefited from so many amazing people who helped us through it all. Our family, especially our daughters Megan and Kelly, have stepped up tremendously. Our church, our pastors, our small groups, there were so many people who carried the burden for us when the burden was too great. One of our pastors, Allen Hoskyn, has been a God-send, he has been there always, he’s been there when no one else would ever be there. The men in my small groups, both here and in Dayton, the couples in Laurel and my small group, have supported us tremendously, praying with us, crying with us, supporting us through the deepest levels. Our friends have been there through it all, and my employer, WIKA, has been incredible, giving me the time and space I’ve needed to work through this. The blessings we’ve received through all of this have given us the strength to persevere, to make it through each day. And there were days when I had no idea how we would get through another day, but somehow we did. And we will continue to make it through another day.

Unfortunately, this whole experience has taken Patrick, and maybe Sean, further away from God, or at least mainstream Christianity. The person who wronged us is a self-proclaimed good Christian, broadcasts it regularly on Facebook. Grove City College is a Christian college, proclaiming “Grove City College is a Christian College where you’re free to exercise your faith in an atmosphere of fellowship and friendship. The result is a campus life animated by faith.” I wish I had taught my sons what Matthew had said “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” The more people or institutions have to tell you what good Christians they are, the more you should be suspicious.

So the year is coming to a close, and it couldn’t come too soon. Will 2014 be any better? While I’d never wish this year on anyone else, or wish to go through another one like it again, I am thankful for all of the blessings we did receive through it all. So many people have given us the gift of compassion and love through the pain. And while it is often difficult to see God’s presence in the midst of suffering, God is never absent, He has always been there, supporting us, especially when the pain became seemingly unbearable. So as the year closes, Merry Christmas, I hope this holiday season brings you great joy. And thank you, thank you all for what you have done to carry us through this year. We couldn’t have done it without all of you.